


Mirror

by nausicaa_of_phaeacia



Series: Same [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Episode: s01e13 T.R.A.C.K.S., F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 21:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1178368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nausicaa_of_phaeacia/pseuds/nausicaa_of_phaeacia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skye is severely wounded and something has to be done about it at once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I think I rushed this, but I hope you still like it!  
> I've been meaning improve it on several accounts since it's got this sort of disorganized/badly planned vibe to it (there are problems with the pacing), but I think I'll just leave it like this because I've always been the worst at editing. (I've always posted my fics on here immediately after writing them tbh, so yeah. Sorry.) ;)
> 
> I originally planned this as a second part to my previous fic called "Same", but I'm sure it can be read separately.

He'd been staring into her eyes for hours, were they open. He knows all too well what the others must be thinking: he knows Ward thinks it's his fault, that Fitz blames himself for not going inside with her, that Melinda thinks she should have realized sooner what was going on inside the train, that Jemma is crumbling under the pressure now on her to save Skye. He knows that at the moment, Melinda is probably bandaging Ward's hand, that Fitz has been sitting on Jemma's bed with her ever since she's made the call to Munich. 

He has barely moved: his palms are flat against the glass, as if hoping that Skye'd be able to feel his presence somehow, or at least: someone's presence, hoping that she knows she's not alone. He imagines her trying to reach the door, trying to cry for help, and it breaks his heart, that damned organ of his that has been stabbed and resurrected, broken and mended far too often. It's been hours since he's removed his suit jacket; he looks so unofficial, so unlike himself, that no one has dared to enter the room. Melinda made an attempt at comforting him, trying to explain how it's not his fault, either, that it was all Quinn, Quinn and Skye's damned courage - _Coulson, you know, she's a 0-8-4 after all, who knows_ \- but left after being barked at by him. 

At night, the plane practically buzzes with everyone lying awake; he feels it. He's sat down at her side, as if sulking at Snow White's grave - but she's not dead, he keeps reminding himself. _She's not dead. Not dead._

And then it comes to him.  
 _Not dead._  
He stands up so quickly that there are small stars in the corners of his eyes, but he doesn't care. He rushes to the cockpit, where he knows Melinda to be sitting during nights of insomnia.  
When he stumbles in through a clumsily opened door, he's out of breath.  
"Streiten," he pants.  
The look on her face is pure confusion, a rare occasion with Agent May.  
"Dr Streiten," he pants again. She seems to understand who he's talking about, but is still unable to establish a connection between the surgeon and the fact that Phil, first two shirt buttons open, is looking at her with such despair and intensity.  
He almost collapses into the co-pilot's seat. "Tahiti," he rasps.  
And suddenly, Melinda understands and it's all loops and turns and dizziness and military manoeuvres as she turns the plan around immediately.

Of course, Melinda's all-but-smooth turnaround more or less drives the rest of the team together, and they sit motionless around the holotable. Ward, eyes sleepy but obviously red from keeping vigil, is already half in combat mode; Jemma hides her tear-swollen face in Fitz' sweater. They are trying to keep some kind of facade, whereas they all know it's wrong to do so. This is about Skye, damnit, Skye, for whom even May would jump through a burning hoop (very gracefully, of course).  
After what feels like hours, Coulson comes hurrying out of the cockpit, commanding Ward to join Melinda in landing the plane. Not as if she needs it, but even in his state of absolute agitation, he deems it right to order Melinda - no, everyone - to be kept company, and that's why he gives Fitzsimmons only a quick nod, pacing back to her. Because she shouldn't be left alone, either.

Again, his palms are against the glass, his tired eyes concentrating on her weak but still mostly regular breathing; it mists up what separates them. Suddenly, it dawns on him how she must have felt upon finding him inside that machine; she isn't screaming, but he knows she suffered more than she should ever have during the minutes in which they had frantically searched Quinn's mansion, in which he'd been running down the stairs, almost somersaulting down the steep steps.

Two hours later, they still haven't arrived, and Skye's breathing is getting more and more irregular. He's ordered Fitz to keep Jemma away, to keep it from her, and while the boy looks like he's about to cry himself, he knows Jemma can't take the news yet. May is biting her lip, clutching the helm; Ward feels like burying his face in his hands, but forces himself to keep his eyes open for Melinda, because it's foggy - for her, and _for Skye_. Coulson is practically spread over the glass, his eyes begging her to breathe in again, and again, and again. And then, she just stops. The glass doesn't steam up from inside anymore, and while he knows it's not going to happen anymore, he doesn't move for another minute. Then, suddenly, he's in a rush, but they are bringing down the bus already, and his momentum throws him against the doorframe, shoulder first, but he doesn't even register the pain.  
 _She's stopped breathing._

They come tumbling down in a daft manoeuver - there isn't much landing space in a city - and everything is atop and under something. Ward can barely keep himself from falling against May, and Fitzsimmons are hugging fiercely in the next possible corner. Having brought the plane to a full stop, Melinda and Ward come running towards the others, Coulson already trying to move the glass tube on his own, Fitz and Ward trying to take over, but he won't let go. Melinda shields Jemma in a very awkward pose, half-hugging her away from the scene. There she goes, being slid outside, the two younger men pushing her back on the intended track every few moments, Coulson hurrying after them, soon overtaking them to burst through a door head over heels. He's met by a shocked Streiten in semi-elegant striped pajamas. 

"Coulson, what - "  
"Tahiti. You have to do it again. _Now._ " He doesn't even sound like himself anymore, and it registers somewhere through the back door of his brain, but he ignores it, pushing the surgeon towards Ward and Fitz, who've just entered with Skye, who looks more and more like a Snow White. And suddenly, the medic understands, joining the agents in pushing the tube further inside his house and practice, only throwing a quick "Fury?" into Coulson's direction, who denies with an almost inhuman bark. 

Everything is preparation and sterilization and pushing, and Coulson shouts at the other two, "Go!," with Fitz whispering "Jemma" after two seconds of hesitation before running outside again, and Ward almost clinging onto the tube until Coulson howls at him again, "Go, damnit!". Suddenly, Phil and Streiten are both in coats and masks and gloves, and they are carrying Skye onto a table in a hurry, instruments blinking and bleeping and Coulson pressing a gloved palm onto her enormous wound. Several times, he considers closing his eyes, but he can't, he mustn't. This was his idea and if he's going to make her suffer by it, he will watch, he will suffer every moment of it with her. He's patching up the wound as well as he can, the frenzy certainly obvious in his eyes, because Streiten says only one thing to him besides desperate instructions: " _You_ were dead for _days_."

She's adopted a bluish colour, and Coulson feels close to fainting from helplessness. He's had basic medical education, but saving her is beyond his abilities; mending the wound, repairing her surface, is pretty much the best he can do. She's lying there, dead, _still dead_ , and nothing Streiten can do could ever be fast enough in this moment. He knows the procedure, but still brings up the emptiness in his stomach into a spare pail as Streiten is taking care of her scalp. A moment later, Skye's head is all wires and robotic arms, and he knows his eye is flinching at every single stimulation impulse, his heart racing faster than ever.

After half an eternity, her eyes twitch, fluttering for a moment until she flings them open, pure fear in her eyes. She can't move anything but her head yet, and he doesn't think he's ever seen such clear despair. She focuses on the ceiling, not seeing him, and her unworldly cries burn themselves into his heart, one by one, the medical robot behind her merciless. When, after a torturing amount of time, Streiten looks at Coulson to explain that it's probably been enough to stimulate her physically, and Phil knows the additional nod means that she, too, is in no condition to desire to be alive. His heart falls several stories, but there was something else in the medic's nod, and he knows he has to try. 

He knows she's beyond any kind of communication, any kind of logical response, any kind of reason. But he grabs her hand, too tight, but it doesn't matter. He grabs and squeezes it, and while she's unable to raise her head to look at him, he knows she feels it. Two more steps, the mask carelessly thrown onto the floor, and he's walked up to her, standing right next to her, his eyes staring into hers, holding them in a gaze like a magnet, stopping them from flickering around in despair. "Skye," he rasps, and finds himself wondering if his voice sounds anything like him at all anymore. It doesn't come out optimistically; it doesn't come out the way he intended it to at all, to be precise. It sounds hopeless and pleading. One quick look at the surgeon, and Streiten leaves the room with an odd movement that could have been a miniature bow.

He tries again. "Skye." It's almost a whisper, but her tear-filled eyes tell him she hears it. "This is the point at which they had to plant a false memory into my brain. I should have told you right away. I didn't want to live. They saved me by messing with my brain. By making up a time and place that never existed." He breathes out in a huff that speaks volumes about how small he feels in all this, how well he knows that this shouldn't be up to anyone but her, but how much he wants it to be his decision, how much he wants her decision to equal the one he's ready to make any minute now.  
"I could have Streiten do the same to you... Tahiti _is_ a magical place for everyone, I suppose..." He looks at her and the tears that have welled up in her eyes are now flowing down her cheeks, but she's still speechless. "But Skye ... If you're able to... Please, just find - please. I ... If you could only find the tiniest bit of willpower inside yourself. Please, Skye, _want_. Just want. I know this isn't anything that can be asked of - of anyone. But I need you - I need you to want to live. To hang on. To come back. I ... I need you." 

His eyes are on the floor, her hand still clutched in his, and he doesn't dare to look at her anymore. He knows, yes, he's telling himself that it's no use. That the only possibility to keep her in this life is to call for Streiten and make him plant something into her head that doesn't belong there. And he knows that he can't decide that for her, that he can't act the way Fury did. That he's too weak, _too freaking weak_ to force an artificial will to live on her. He knows that he's going to walk out of the room and lose her forever, lose her to a battle he made her fight. He's turning away from her, and there's the tiniest squeeze against his fingers; it makes him start, but he doesn't dare to turn back to her. He faces the wall, but her weak fingers tug at his for a split-second, and his eyes are back on her immediately.  
If he weren't able to read lips, he most probably wouldn't have understood her barely noticeable whisper.  
"If you did it, I can."

And it makes him almost spread over her, grab her and fling his arms around her, but given the condition she's in, he stifles his emotions so far as to have them result in bending over her awkwardly, the disbelief in his voice grasping for the tiniest bit of hope.  
"Are you - are you with me, Skye?"  
"Yes," move her lips, and this tiny word is enough to make him crumble and burst out in tears, his emotions so raw and pure that they make something pang and adjust inside her. She's too weak to keep her eyes open, but she's still holding onto his hand, and he can't quite believe it yet. He's still sobbing, clutching her hand, then, after a moment, interlocks his fingers with hers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Still a draft. ;)

She's healing, finally healing, and even after at least four weeks, he's still staying with her. He allows no one else to visit her, and nobody dares to object. The fact that she's still alive, no, alive again, has to be enough for now. He sits next to her bed every day, her body motionless except for breathing, very regular breathing. Every now and then, she wakes up, the look in her eyes full of pain and confusion, and every single time, he whispers, "Don't speak." His hands are around hers all the time, until one day, she wakes up to the chair next to her being empty. Moments later, Jemma comes stumbling inside, visibly trying not to tear up. "You're ... you're okay, oh my God," Simmons smiles, and Skye manages to mirror her weakly. "Um ... Coulson ... He's with Fury. Protocol and all that. Insubordination." Skye gives a tiny nod, too exhausted and too much in pain to really do anything else. Jemma feels urged to hug her, but manages to only sit down on Coulson's chair, barely able to contain her excitement and relief. 

After minutes of just nothing, she shyly asks one word.  
"Tahiti?"  
And Skye knows she has to answer. "No," she knows, her voice raspy from not having spoken in weeks. The tiny word makes Jemma beam as though she were radioactive.  
When, silent hours later, Simmons rises very carefully to leave, Skye tries to reach for her. "Yes?," Jemma asks in a very soft voice, again on the verge of tears of relief. Skye swallows, and it takes some effort, but when she speaks, her voice sounds more like her again. "Don't tell him yet."

It's obvious that tons of questions are waiting on Simmons' tongue, but she bites her lip, because she can answer the most urgent one herself: _Don't tell Coulson yet that she finally woke up for good, because she wants to tell him herself._ So she just turns back around to Skye and nods, adding silently, "He's going to be back in three days."  
And at that, Skye manages to smile on her own. 

Even May is going to nod in acknowledgement at how quickly Skye manages to get back on her feet during those three days; Ward is going to flaunt a proud smile at everyone who even slightly scrapes the topic. Skye has insisted to be allowed onto the bus again, even if she's not going to be an active part of any operation for another two weeks at least. They're flying to Chile, with some stopovers along the way. Melinda announces Coulson is going to meet them there; later, secretly, she tells Skye they've kept him in the belief that Simmons has stayed with her, and that he's been asking about her condition during every single call, which has been twice a day. On the evening of the third day, they are landing just outside Porvenir, which lies in the so-called Land of Fire, and Fitz is all giddy with excitement,like a small child in expectation of a grand present. May ushers Jemma into the back room of the lab so that Coulson doesn't see her right away; Ward can't help but smile at the unusual commitment she is - probably involuntarily - displaying.

As Coulson is stalking up the steep ramp, it's obvious that everyone is expecting back the head of the team; everyone is a little excited, almost nervous at the thought that they know something he doesn't. Still, everything goes according to their unspoken plan and nobody gives away anything. Jemma is doing a brave job in hiding out in the back room; Fitz occasionally pops in for a quick chat, bringing her small and clumsily made mozzarella sandwiches, but always makes sure to do so whenever Coulson is busy. Then, after a long and busy day in operations, a bug detector Fitz is trying to reprogramme in order to adapt to Chilean private security frequencies - Ward and Coulson watching his every move, bending over the table in shirt sleeves - just goes poof because he's really trying not to give away that Jemma's hiding right behind him, separated only by a very thin glass door, come to think of it. The small short-circuit temporarily kills the air-conditioning of the room, and after less then five minutes patience, Coulson hurries to the back room of the lab to check on the fuse and switch it back on. Before Fitz can even say a word, he freezes on the threshold; then, after just a moment of regaining his composure, loses it again, almost barking at poor Jemma, "What-", but Ward, who's been observing Fitz's electrical escapades out of childlike curiosity, interrupts him. 

"Boss."  
He whirls around, and Ward feels his knees almost give way to the angry horror in Coulson's eyes, but he manages to stand firm and say calmly, "She's here." Before Phil can ask, Ward just nods in affirmation as to where Skye is at the moment. Coulson rushes out of the room, and within a split-second, Fitz is sitting on the floor, right next to Jemma, one hand on her trembling shoulder. He's about to ask her a worried question, but right then, Simmons looks him straight in the eye and grins.

Phil almost runs to her door, then stops in front of it abruptly. He doesn't hear a sound; then, after a moment, hears her - almost cheerful, _is it cheerful?_ \- voice:  
"Come in."  
She must have recognized his steps, because when he opens the door to let himself in and closes it after himself out of sheer reflex, she doesn't look in the least bit surprised. He just stands and stares, because Skye is sitting on her bed, her centre obviously wrapped in bandages under her shirt, a book on her lap, and looking almost smug. He is unable to speak, and when she realizes he looks as though he's going to faint, she puts the book on her bedside table and says, very softly,  
"Phil."

And suddenly, that moment, that night, is back. Where she had come to sit on his bed, to comfort him in the middle of the night. He blinks, and she's indeed inviting him to sit next to her by lightly touching the blanket. He doesn't know how he's able to walk over to her, but he is, and as he lowers himself to sit on the bed, she smiles at him so intensely that he can't hold back a smile himself.  
"How-?," he manages, his voice unusually husky. Very slowly, she moves her hand over to his bare forearm, innocently trailing her fingers down his skin until her fingers meet his, and carefully resting his palm against the spot in which she's been wounded. His eyes widen at the unexpected touch, but she covers his hand with hers so as to keep it there. 

"I'm here because of you," she says, almost whispering, and she doesn't know where the courage to tell him suddenly came from. He moves his other hand to his own chest, and she knows he's covering his scars with his palm. He suddenly seems to become very somber, pensive, and since she can't meet his eyes, she gives his hand the tiniest of squeezes. It makes him look straight into her eyes, and they spend too much time just looking at each other. He tries to read in her gaze, and as she slowly starts to smile, it overwhelms him, and he smiles back so genuinely that it's clear that everything has been understood. He makes their fingers entwine as he says, again, one word:  
"Same."  
This time, beaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks so much for reading! Please tell me what you think! :)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you liked it! :)
> 
> Please tell me what you think -  
> I didn't write a follow-up fic to "Same" at first because I was afraid to ruin the atmosphere.


End file.
